


The Art of Medicine

by alltheglitters



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - Medical, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Meet-Cute, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 11:07:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4098781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltheglitters/pseuds/alltheglitters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is a nurse to do when a very handsome doctor-in-training takes an interest in her?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art of Medicine

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to make this a bit of a romantic comedy, and I have a feeling that this is less funny that I intended it to be. At the very least, Matt and Claire are making goo-goo eyes at each other.
> 
>  
> 
> Disclaimer: in its use of intellectual property and characters belonging to Marvel and Netflix, this work of fiction is intended to be transformative commentary on the original. No profit is being made from this work.
> 
> Warning: this has not been read by a beta. All mistakes are my own.

I.

 

The first time they meet is at nine o’clock on a Monday morning in August, at the Metropolitan General Hospital where she works. This man - a complete stranger - has a nice smile and he's good-looking. Tells her that he likes her voice as he leans against the reception counter.

She can’t help but notice the duffel thrown across his shoulder as well as the definition of his body underneath the pressed shirt.

When he – Matt, he articulates, Matthew Murdock – asks her if she can go for drinks with him this weekend, she says to him that she doesn’t date patients at the hospital.

“Lucky for you, I’m not a patient.” Pause. This is a man who is self-assured. “It’s my first day here. I’m an intern.”

Looking at the cane in his hand and his tinted glasses, she is surprised that the blind man in front of her can practice medicine – or will be able to in three years’ time. But she keeps her mouth shut, because she’s not a bigot. Plus, she cannot afford to be suspended from the hospital.

His devil-may-care smirk suggests to her that he’s well-aware of her curiosity.

“GP track,” he clarifies easily.

A doctor – even a newbie – always thinks that he has this effect on a nurse. Or in her case, nurse practitioner. From her experience, Claire thinks that doctors have the opposite effect.

Today is no exception. She’s not going to start batting her eyelashes at Matt any time soon. “I don’t date coworkers either.”

His expression is cheeky, like he thinks that she might actually change her mind soon. The bastard.

"Let me know how it goes," she says dryly. “Your first day.”

Grabbing the folder that the chief nurse left on the desk for her, Claire walks off.

She is not about to let Matt Murdock know that she is very much into tall, dark and handsome.

 

 

 

 

 

II.

 

He finds her at the end of the day. Well, not the _day…_  so much as a forty-hour shift. “I’m exhausted. I don't even want to move.”

Their fingers touch as he sits beside her in the break room.

“When do you get off work on Saturday?” 

“You’re an intern,” she pronounces, pulling her hand away from his. It must be said that his hands are as warm as an oven. She’s doing her best to ignore how cute he is and how much she wants to run her fingers over his stubble and the scratches on his face. “You don’t get to leave the hospital this Saturday. By the way, there's a crash room on the second floor, outside the ICU if you really need it. As good as Urich is with his interns, he's tough... and if he's supervising…”

Matt seems to think differently, and she wonders how naïve he must be.

“Besides, we’re colleagues, and it’s not professional.”

Meanwhile, Claire’s good friend, Marci, a cardiologist, has just entered. She’s raising her eyebrows when she sees that Claire is speaking to a man in gray scrubs. With an inappropriate gesture or two, Marci manages to convey to Claire that she definitely needs to get it on with this man.

Claire doesn’t know what concerns her more. Marci’s suggestion or that Matt’s mouth seems to be quivering, as if he is suppressing a laugh. 

Marci is facing Matt’s back, which means that he should have no idea of what is going on behind him.

 

 

 

 

 

Marci, who hardly knows all about the matters of the heart, declares over lunch, “Oh, please. I’ll say whatever I damn well please… and I’ve _seen_ the way Murdock looks at you.”

“What way?” Claire is defensive. “He doesn’t look at me in any _way_.”

 

 

 

 

 

III.

 

During her ER clinical rotation, Matt ends up magically assigned to the doctor she is assisting.

His fellow intern, Foggy Nelson, walks by and shoots him a wink.

Claire pretends to not notice.

Although Matt usually lights up around her, which she has definitely _not_ picked up on since he arrived at the hospital six weeks ago, he looks more out of it this afternoon. It might have something to do with the large gash across his neck and the bruises along his knuckles. 

Is it safe for a blind man to be practicing medicine, especially if he is capable of falling everywhere and into everything as the case seems to be? That’s not for her to decide though, is it? She has to leave that to the medical council.

Besides, she has heard the praise for Matt directly from his superiors.

Even though she has no business in being concerned for this strange man, she finds herself asking, “You alright, Matt?”

He gives her a tired smile, his cane balanced on his lap. Dirt on his black boots, a dark contrast to his white coat. “You worried about me?” 

Against her better judgment, she responds to his flirtation. “What if I were?”

Then, his smile disappears. “We – uh – we admitted Urich’s wife today.”

The sadness in his brown eyes surprises her. It is clear that Matt has grown attached to his mentor. This realization strikes home for some reason.

She’s never worked closely with Ben Urich, but she’s always respected him for his dedication to his patients and his unwavering empathy.

Although she never would never wish it on anyone, it is particularly unfair that such a kind and good man, who has spent his whole life fighting for the betterment of Hell’s Kitchen through his work as a doctor, is losing his wife to Alzheimer's.

As she tends to the unconscious patient resting beside them, she wonders how people are meant to take it one day at a time when each day seems more pressing than the last.

 

 

 

 

 

In the last few days, she has been thinking, and she's come around to the idea that she might let herself respond to Matt’s advances. There aren’t strict rules per se at the hospital. Just moral boundaries that she might not wish to cross.

It seems silly and awful, because Urich’s situation has a lot to do with it. She doesn’t mean to cheapen someone else’s tragedy. And she hates that it is only _now_ – thinking about Doris – that it dawns on her that she doesn’t actually have all the time in the world –

Which is stupid, considering that she works in the hospital for god’s sake. She should’ve realized this from the start.

Given that Matt has been quite open about his attraction towards her, she prays that she will still have a chance the next time they run into each other.

 

 

 

 

 

IV.

 

She feels it in her bones. The air is different. Thick with copper.

Digging her way through the dark and quiet room, filled with medicine cabinets, Claire hopes to find a certain type of medicine to reduce the symptoms of smoking cessation for one of her patients.

She gasps when she sees drips of fresh blood on the floor behind her. Before she can react, a figure grips her from behind, a hand covering her mouth. His body is hot against hers, and it reminds her of a particular doctor in the building with his warm hands and long fingers.

Spinning around to elbow the figure in his groin, she finds that his grasp is actually quite loose.

“Ow!” 

With that, the man falls onto the floor with an ungraceful grunt.

Looking at the collapsed man, she knows exactly who it is. He is dressed in a shoddy ninja costume, his face obscured by black cloth. It _has_ to be the Daredevil of Hell’s Kitchen.

For her, finding the Daredevil running around in the hospital is hardly the biggest shock of the night though.

When this man utters, “Claire,” his voice like a broken radio, her heart jumps at the sound.

Matthew.

She must be down on her luck.

The cute, blind doctor-in-training turns out to be the local poster child for vigilante justice.

 

 

 

 

 

V.

 

“I was looking for bandages and dressing,” he says after she drags him into a cupboard within the room, locking the door behind them to prevent anyone from coming in and discovering their fairly illegal activities.

She’s very aware of how close their bodies are in this tiny space.

As she finishes suturing a cut along his stomach, she mentions him that he’s as good as new. They both think that he's got a concussion, but the wounds themselves are not too serious. He needs to rest and call in sick for a few days.

“Are you… mad?”

She’s frozen as she looks at him. _No, but are_ you  _mad?_

“I’m not angry. I'm shocked that you can do all of this in the first place!”

Sighing in response, he tells her everything. His powers. His dad. What motivates him to go out and beat up bad guys on a regular basis. His belief system (she snorts when he describes himself as Catholic).

His work. How caring Ben is… how much like a father he has been to Matt.

Foggy. How lucky Matt feels that his best friend and he are both training at their neighborhood hospital. Together.

Karen. His and Foggy's only other friend.

When he’s said everything that he has to say, he gives her several minutes to digest everything and to ask him to clarify the things that she doesn’t quite understand.

After that, she instinctively tells him about herself.

Her life, her work.

Her passion for helping people.

The book she’s reading.

Her interests outside of her work. “I like watching movies.”

“I like records,” he says in response.

At 4 am in the morning, she wonders if she is actually mad. Completely out of her mind. Under normal circumstances, she might consider it a lovely and spectacular date where you spend the whole night talking to the other person and getting to know them.

The conversation flows naturally, like he's always been a part of her life. This very thought tickles her heart.

Although they do not kiss nor does she ask him about those drinks, like she had intended to do so before she found out that he was the freaking _Daredevil_ , the evening is rather romantic. Rather magical.

 

 

 

 

 

If Claire can find a way of spinning this story without letting it slip that Matt is a vigilante, then she might tell Marci about her night.

Marci will be happy for her – or at least comment on how this might be the road to recovery after a long dry spell.

 

 

 

 

 

VI.

 

“For a doctor, you make a _really_ bad patient.” Claire makes a mental note to herself. _At least he isn't trying to stitch up his own wounds._

“I try,” he chuckles. “Or I’m just a contrary son of a bitch.”

The third time that she tends to his injuries, they are in an empty room on the fifth floor.

By the time she puts away her scissors and needle, he’s gazing at her in a way that makes her feel more beautiful than a girl should in her oldest, dirtiest and bloodiest scrubs.

Marci’s words ring true after all. Matt keeps looking in Claire's general direction like she’s the goddamn sun.

Before she knows it, before she can think and register, he moves his hand to cup her chin. Then, he kisses her like his life depends on it.

Matt tastes like blood and spices and beer.

Liquid courage? He could've swiped the alcohol from Dr Fisk's room down the corridor after he paged her.

Matt's tongue slowly explores her mouth. The sensation is overwhelming as she pulls back.

“I'm sorry - ”

“Don't be, Matt,” she tells him. She almost forgets that she has to be careful with the wound along his arm. “I was wondering if you were ever going to do that.”

“Well, I’ve been a little busy. I’ve been wanting to do that… for a while…” Matt scratches his ear, embarrassed. Frankly, she thinks that his sensitivity makes him quite endearing. She likes it when he’s unguarded. “I’ve been meaning to say this, but I’m sorry if I’ve been pushy. I feel like I’ve been an entitled idiot – I kept asking if you wanted to go out with me, and you have every reason not to. Especially now that you _know_. It's just that I could - I could hear your heartbeat and your breathing, and I thought that you liked me.”

Although he had told her about his gifts, it has never occurred to her that he might be able to read her so closely. It is scary and exciting and –

“I do like you.” She is now shifting towards the entrance to the room. It’s time for her to resume her shift and to leave him to rest.

“What happened to professionalism, Miss Temple?”

“Don't remind me.”

“Okay,” he grins. “I'll take you out for dinner after your shift on Friday. How's that?”

“I finish at eleven pm.”

“I can make you dinner,” he says smoothly, as charming as ever. His cockiness provides a change of pace, and she’s grown rather partial to his slight arrogance. “I've been told that I'm quite the cook.”

“Fine,” she answers, her foot resting against the door. She pulls her hair into a ponytail. “Friday evening it is.”

 

 

 

 

 

FIN.


End file.
